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Obama Says U.S. Has No Idea Who Carried Out Cyberattack

Officials and cybersecurity experts believe internet-linked devices such as cameras, video recorders and routers were used in denial-of-service attack

President Barack Obama speaks with television host Jimmy Kimmel during a break in the taping of the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show in Hollywood, Calif., on Monday.
Photo:
Nicholas Kamm/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

“We don’t have any idea who did that,” Mr. Obama said during a taped appearance Monday for the late-night show hosted by
Jimmy Kimmel.

U.S. officials and cybersecurity experts believe attackers controlled a vast collection of internet-linked devices such as cameras, video recorders and routers, to essentially overwhelm parts of the internet and make dozens of popular websites unreachable.

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Web-technology developer Dynamic Network Services Inc., known as Dyn, said its domain-name-system services were subject to the attack, known as a denial of service. The attack came in several waves throughout Friday.

The Department of Homeland Security on Monday said it was still “monitoring events” tied to the attack. It said that following the incident, it held a conference call with 18 telecommunications service providers to discuss what happened, adding “at this time, we believe the attack has been mitigated.”

DHS said “one type of malware potentially used in this incident” is known as Mirai and targets devices such as cameras and entertainment systems that have internet links. DHS is working to develop rules to address these types of attacks, but the timing of such a move is unclear.

For Mr. Obama to say, several days after the attacks, that the government doesn’t know the culprit could be a testament to how hard it is to uncover clues after such an event. The attack is considered sophisticated, and likely within the realm of tools that foreign governments and advanced criminal groups can activate. It is unclear, though, what the motive of the perpetrators was or if they were trying to deliver any sort of warnings or message.

Mr. Obama said the incident underscores how monumental the task of dealing with cybersecurity is for his successors.

“One of the biggest challenges for the next president and the president after that and the president after that is going to be: How do we continue to get all the benefits of being in cyberspace but protect our finances, protect our privacy? How do we balance issues of security,” Mr. Obama said.

“We’re going to have to come up with frameworks and some of its going to involve technology, some of it’s going to involve the law but this is going to be a big debate that we’re going to have for a long time,” he added.

Mr. Obama during the appearance also joked about the security precautions attached to his iPhone to prevent intrusions. He said most of the functions, such as making calls, texting and taking photographs, are disabled, leaving him only able to use it to send email and surf the internet.

Even with those precautions, he said, he still doesn’t put anything in an email that he wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the newspapers.